Shame
by A-Spirit
Summary: Shame... It choked him. It made him cringe inside, as Snape's anatomy would be ripped apart, examined and found revolting. It made him angry and left him feeling trapped. COMPLETE! SSHP


**Disclaimer:** Severus Snape, Harry Potter and Co. belongs to J.K. Rowling. Alas, I will never own them.

**Warning: **Mild violence, Non-graphic rape, Other graphic imagery. (4900 words)

**Pairing:** Severus/Harry

**Rating: R**

**Author:** **_Spirit_**

x

**SHAME**

In the Gryffindor Common room, there were always discussions being held on how undesirable Professor Severus Snape was.

He was Hogwarts' most hated professor and he had earned that title through years of torturing students. No one could pinpoint exactly how long he had been teaching at Hogwarts but each student was reasonably sure that they would never forget such a wizard in their years to come.

In the Common room discussions, the Seventh Years were always the most blatant and the younger students soon learned to take mental notes. It was good to gather such information and perhaps if they listened hard enough the trick to surviving seven years in the wizard's presence would be passed on to them as it was passed on each year.

"I bet I know why his fingers are always so disgusting and his teeth are such vibrant shade of yellow," Dean declared hotly after a particularly nasty day of NEWT level Potions. "I saw him sipping from a vial in class. I bet he's been sampling his potions again."

"He's a vampire you know," Neville said one day, sitting in a corner and being handed a cup of tea to soothe his nerves. "A vampire. He scared the magic out of me today!"

"Greasy git!" Ron would storm in and shout. "Bloody prat! What the hell's he doing as a teacher? They should kick his arse out of here. I bet he's the reason why it rained last Quidditch match. Did anyone notice that he was the only one not soaked? It's all the grease from his hair. It probably seeped into his skin or something."

"He doesn't even read my papers," Hermione muttered softly so that only Harry could hear. "Fifteen rolls of parchment and all he could say was that I seem to have a lot of time on my hands. I deserved an A, but all he gave me was a B-."

It wasn't anything new that Harry hadn't heard before. For six out of their almost seven years he had been quite happy to join in the ranting that always occurred when a Gryffindor came in contact with the Potions professor. Lately he sat in silence as they spoke, giving only the occasional nod of understanding or glare of disapproval aimed at the Head Table in the Great Hall.

Silently he would suppress the ball of heat that caught in his stomach or the shiver that travelled over his body whenever the topic of Snape would come up.

Shame.

It choked him. It made him cringe inside, as Snape's anatomy would be ripped apart, examined and found revolting. It made him lay awake some nights while Neville snored and Dean tried creeping back into the dorm after his visits to Ravenclaw and Ron muttered rubbish in his sleep. It made him angry and left him feeling trapped when he realized that he wouldn't be able to go on his own excursions for the night.

He would cast a silencing spell, and bite his lower lip until it bled and slip his hand under his night pants and imagine coal-coloured eyes and a voice of silk and melted chocolate…and cry out with shame as he came.

It made his heart pound painfully in his chest as he raced silently along Hogwarts' corridors, hidden under an invisibility cloak on the nights that he did manage to make it out. It made him want to vomit as he stood with raised fist to knock ever so softly on a door that should not be accessible to him at one in the morning but was anyway. He never allowed himself to think of the nausea as a product of nervousness but always as the bitter mingle of excitement and disgust and regret and shame that he carried with him to these clandestine meetings.

When the door opened and his cloaked was removed, he would gaze into eyes so heated that they set his entire body on fire. Only then would he finally manage to push the shame away. He buried it beyond the need for touch, the scent of lust and the painful arousal that sent his senses clawing for appeasement.

Guided towards the bed, clothes discarded, he forced himself to imagine every touch he felt as a product of another.

Yellow nails that scraped along his thigh, driving him wild would be short, blunt and perfectly healthy behind his closed eyelids. Hands that unnaturally held warmth in a place as cold as the dungeons would caress his skin, and he would try to convince himself that he didn't like the slow strokes or the surprisingly gentle grasp as they held him anchored to the bed. A mouth that could spew such hate filled words would glide along his body, sending wisps of warm air that had him squirming and whimpering.

Instead it would be coffee brown eyes that he was drowning within. And long red hair instead of oily black that his fingers would clench tightly in. And lightly tanned skin instead of pale. And smiles, not bites. And red. And gold. Not green and silver.

And the body that lay above him, inside him, connected so intimately, with whom he clung to and tried so desperately to never have to let go of…was not the person who he tried to trick his mind into believing.

"Who were you thinking of this time?" The question was always asked because there was always an answer to it.

"Charlie Weasley," Harry responded softly.

A rush of cool air would replace the warmth of bodies in close contact that previously enveloped him. Harry would be abandoned to the bed while the other, unconcerned with nakedness, would move as far away as possible.

"Get out," Severus Snape would order softly.

Amidst the scramble for his clothes, the panic in losing his glasses and the realization that he was a wizard and only had to 'Accio' them to himself, Harry would ignore the burn at the back of his throat again as he wondered if he would be allowed to return. Then he would silently swear as he always did over and over that the next time and the next time he would admit to nothing.

He would sneak back into the dorm room with far more skill than Dean could ever manage and lay awake waiting for the feel of the phantom touches of the night caressing his skin once more, wondering why it was so difficult to relive the night if the eyes in his mind weren't onyx and the nails weren't yellow and the hair through his fingers wasn't black and greasy.

In the morning he would sit in the Common room listening to his classmates vent their anger and he would submerge himself in the feeling of shame.

x-x-x

When the Death Eaters kidnapped him, he was two weeks away from his eighteenth birthday.

It took a while for him to get used to the stink of the cell or the cold of the concrete floor below his naked skin. It took a while for their words to make sense as spell after spell was sent hurtling at him.

He would scream so loudly that his voice would catch in his throat and all that was left was the ripple of pain that visibly shook his body. His body would be stretched taut, covered in long thin gashes that bathed his skin in blood. His nails digging into the concrete would scratch at the grit and grime until his fingertips bled and stung.

When the rapes happened he would lie very still.

Separating mind from body, he watched impassively as they lined up one by one and used him. Some liked when he screamed so he would scream for them. Some liked when he begged so he would beg for them. Others wanted him to moan and plead to be taken. To those he spat in their faces and told them to go sod themselves.

And at nights, left alone to the cold of the cell and the aches and pains and torment, he would close his eyes tightly and remind himself of onyx eyes that looked on him as if he were desirable. And of gentle hands that slid over his skin to soothe the burning of desire that had coursed through him. And lips that kissed his torment away.

"My name is Harry Potter," he whispered to the trick of his imagination that was dressed in black and always scowling at him or asking him to remember who he was. "Just Harry. Just Harry. Just Harry."

"I know who you are," Severus Snape growled gently as he wrapped Harry in his black cloak, barely glancing at the other body that Harry had rid of its evil soul.

He made sure to leave the Dark Lord's body engulfed in a healthy blue flame as he walked out. Even as he did, he buried the intrigue that clawed the surface of his mind as he wondered how Harry had managed to kill the dark wizard. And he knew, as he gazed at the broken body of the Boy-Who-Lived, that some secrets Harry would bear alone, forever.

In his arms Harry tried to cling to the familiar scent of sage and burned wood and Severus. He wrapped his arms around the thin waist and tried not to scream when his broken ribs were jarred as Snape carried him away.

At St. Mungo's he tried to cover the lines on his skin that were bound to leave scars in their wake. There were too many of them though and some of them had become infected from having dirt cling to his skin for so long.

At St. Mungo's he screamed when anyone came near him and he hexed any Healer who dared touch him.

At night, his skin crawled with the feel of hands, so many, many hands, clawing at his skin. Rough and harsh and cruel. Nails biting into his flesh. And the scent of sex and blood and vomit and liquid faeces seeped into his body and would not leave his mind. Behind the tears, he would see eyes glowing red in the dark and hear laughter that encircled him.

He would be left to wallow in the shame that suffocated him when he thought of the moments when he had subjected himself almost willingly to the cruelty and he wished that he had died in that cell.

At St. Mungo's they locked him in a padded white room and would not let him out no matter how long he screamed or pounded on the door. But it was magically locked with the skill of the goblins and Harry would burn his fingertips raw as he tried to spell himself out of the sea of images that surrounded him in there.

They took his wand away the first day, before they pulled him kicking and screaming into the bright light and cushions that prevented him from splitting his skull open as he banged his head against the wall.

They took his clothes away the next month when he ripped it into strips and tried to strangle himself with it. The wards went off and echoed so loudly that he lay whimpering, curled into a ball of pain and tears and almost unconscious from the tight noose of white cloth around his neck that severely limited his oxygen supply.

After the first three months they spelled his nails and teeth into blunt edges using a spell that they would remove only when he needed to have a meal.

He had spent hours the day before ripping bloody pathways into his skin and then nibbling on his fingertips until they were just blobs of raw bleeding flesh, damaged. He had howled when they cast the spell on him the first time. Remus had cringed at the sound and Hermione had run away sobbing. After that day he spent hours pulling chunks of his hair out as he loudly tried to convince Lucius Malfoy that he wasn't pretty enough to devour and sex with him would not be worth the wait.

The Healers at St. Mungo's left him to this. It was easy enough to restore him his full head of hair every morning than to fight with him to get him to stop.

Three months after that the Healers put him under the 'Petrificus Totalus' spell.

He had tried to break Ron's neck.

It was a good thing that he hadn't his wand and so had to resort to the Muggle way. Ron had just stood there and taken the beating. The Healers gave him an exasperated look when they finally pried Harry off him. The bloody nose, black eyes and hand shaped bruises at the side of his face and neck looked rather painful and yet the wizard hadn't moved on being attacked.

"It's nothing," Ron told them softly. "Is he hurt?"

Harry spent one year of his life in St. Mungo's Hospital before he was thought well enough to return to the sane world. By then he no longer heard laughter rising from the shadows of his mind or saw Death Eaters surrounding him, clawing at him, cursing him.

It was a long time later that Harry could swallow his shame to face the witch at the front desk again.

x-x-x

At university Harry Potter was the most eligible man on campus.

In the hallways Muggle women flocked to him as they shyly or flirtatiously asked for his opinion on one topic or another and the men would strut about for days if he just softly acknowledged knowing them. It wasn't that Harry went out of his way to be popular. In fact he tried his hardest sometimes to disappear, without actually disappearing. Large crowds made his fingers sweat and his heart race, which was the only reason why he even went anywhere. He was determined not to become agoraphobic because that prospect promised its own hidden torment.

When he spoke to Hermione about it she told him that it was okay for him to be afraid. Ron had laughed at that and said exactly what Harry had been thinking at the time.

"No Hermione, afraid is way too mild a way to phrase it. It's more like scared. White hot, nightmare quality scared, that sends nausea washing over him," Ron had declared with a teasing smile.

Hermione had immediately turned to Harry, smiled sadly and said that this was also okay to feel.

"Hey Potter, the hottest woman in the uni is blatantly staring at your arse and you seem so damn oblivious!"

"If you think it's so hot to have her stare at me then maybe you should ask her out," Harry chuckled as he and his three Muggle friends cleared a path on their way to second year Biochemistry.

The three men exchanged a look and a laugh at Harry's response.

The guy in question snorted in mock disgust. "I see her as more of a competition than a prize. Just say the word Potter and I'd be willing to find out for her just how tasty your arse is."

Brian and Taylor, the two straight men blushed slightly as they always did when Gavin propositioned Harry. Harry didn't even bat an eyelash. The three men exchanged different levels of sadness in their smiles as they caught up to their raven-haired friend.

Harry Evans-Potter was asexual.

He was interested in neither men nor women, neither birds nor bees. Harry had no urge for sex. They couldn't even remember ever hearing him wanking in the shower in the communal bathroom that the four of them as suitemates shared. Handing him a porn magazine had no effect.

Brian, Taylor and their girlfriends, along with Harry and Gavin, had all gathered to play strip poker one night and nothing happened with Harry. He had laughed, played, drank but while everyone had been casting intriguing glances at each other Potter's gaze had remained detached.

They hadn't given up on figuring him out though.

"Hullo, do you mind if I sit here?" Long red hair caught Harry's attention and it took a moment before his brain caught up with his eyes.

"Ginny!"

She laughed. "Haven't see you for a while Harry. You know, hiding isn't your thing Potter."

Harry pulled her into a tight hug and she hid her tears and smile in the side of his neck. She had heard about the years after Hogwarts, mostly because he had been so much a part of her family and in a way still was. The rest of the wizarding world only knew that he had killed Voldemort and was honoured with a First Class Order of Merlin. Of what happened and how destroyed he had emerged, only few people knew.

"What are you doing here?" he asked softly, ignoring the blatant looks of jealousy that coloured their onlookers' faces.

"Checking up on you of course!" she retorted cheekily before briefly pecking him a kiss on the lips. "You didn't think that you could really disappear from everyone but Ron and Hermione and everyone would take it sitting down?"

Harry made a face. "Dumbledore knows where I am?"

"From the moment you packed I'm sure," she said with a grin. "When does he not know what's going on? He just wanted to give you a bit of breathing space first."

"Then what has happened now to bring you here?" Harry's eyes suddenly became clouded with a swirl of emotions.

"Nothing," she whispered gently, touching his cheek in a soothing gesture.

Harry turned away from the sadness in her eyes and the light of pity that she could not hide in time. He didn't need her to feel sorry for him. He had spent an entire year suffering under a nervous breakdown so pity was the least of his problems. He had rid a world of darkness by being submerged in it.

It had made him stronger. It had changed him. He was better now.

"Tell them that I'm fine," he said, giving her a small smile. "Tell them that I'm old enough to take care of myself and that I am truly grateful for the support, but I'll come back when I'm good and ready to."

Ginny grinned and gave him a saucy wink. "Yes, sir."

He pulled her into another tight hug. Within the room everyone's eyes were on them, even the professor's face was etched into a look of intrigue at the woman who Potter had shown the most interest in all the time that he had been at the university. And she wasn't even a student there.

"Take care of yourself," Ginny said softly.

"You too," he responded.

x-x-x

Years later, after Harry returned from his morning jog around the block in the cold air of London's mornings, he noticed the first glimpse of a black cloak disappearing with a loud pop. This was after he had retrieved his mail from the box and was shuffling through the letters, waiting as he did each morning, as had become his habit for three years.

"Good morning Professor," he said finally to the tabby that purred and slinked against his legs. "Did Dumbledore think I needed someone else to spy on me?"

The cat looked up at him with a disturbing look of disapproval. The strange markings around its eyes seemed to add to the stern look and for a moment the twenty-three year old wizard felt like a Gryffindor student being reproached once more.

"No?" he piped up. "Well tell Snape that if he wants to know how I am he's welcome to ask. Or at least do what you and Albus do and stick your nose in my affairs. Or better yet, ask Ron and Hermione. They seem to have far more time than I anticipated trained Aurors to have."

The cat hissed at him and Harry chuckled. "Right. Well the two of you have been colleagues for years. I'm fairly certain that if he hasn't hexed you yet, you won't let him get away with it any time soon."

Harry was cornered within Diagon Alley the next day.

Cornered was actually not the word. He had popped over to Gringotts to change some dollars into Galleons. This was in preparation for an interview at Hogwarts for the Defence position. Dumbledore had been offering it to him every year since St. Mungo's, whether through his friends or an owl or McGonagall. He had finally been ready to accept it.

Snape had apparated before him. Raised an eyebrow, looked over at The Leaky Cauldron and then disapparated away again.

Harry took the hint to follow and ended up across a table from his former professor.

"I must be a glutton for punishment," Snape murmured hours later. "Why else do I keep falling into this pattern of search and rescue?"

Instead of answering, Harry pulled the warm mouth against his.

Snape had rented a room from Tom for the night or at least Dumbledore had arranged for it. He was to meet Harry and find out his decision on the position. Snape hadn't been too happy about it, nor was he pleased when he realized that it was far too late to send the former student wandering around Muggle London at all hours of the night, especially since apparating into a Muggle neighbourhood was out of the question and Harry's home had no fireplace.

The kiss was followed by another kiss and then another.

Harry had forgotten what desire felt like or what arousal tasted like or how much he had always loved being in Severus Snape's arms. His body curved into his. Fitting perfectly now that Harry was just a little taller and a little better built.

His skin awakened as from a dream where it had been so long ago that he had responded sexually to anyone. This wizard had only to touch him and his skin burned.

Had it always been like this? Harry wondered hazily as they shed clothes and shoes and discarded his glasses to a place on the floor somewhere. Had it always been so close to perfect? Yes. Better now. Better now that he knew that touch like this could hurt and kisses could leech and one body could be an invasion on another's.

His fingers slid through soft black strands of hair. It took a moment to realize that there was no more grease. Dark liquid pools gazed down at him. Harry smiled, capturing appealing lips as he'd never done when he was younger. Appreciating the beauty of a kiss. Treasuring the perfection in a touch. His hand slid over pale flesh as Severus' hands slid over the fading scars that covered his body. He didn't try to hide out of shame, as he would have for anyone else. Severus' body wasn't perfect and smooth either.

He caught one roving hand and brought the fingers, no longer stained yellow, to his lips, then began to suck gently on one, two, three fingers, guiding the hand between their bodies to his most intimate places.

Their bodies, joined, moved together in synchrony.

"Love you. Loveyouloveyouloveyou. Love you," Harry murmured softly.

The arm that held him tightened protectively as the silent tears streamed from beneath his tightly closed eyelids. Images of his past merged and melted and swirled together until they were liquid and tears and he could finally be rid of the pain they had caused him for so long. He held tightly onto the wizard that had been his one faded beam of light in the moments when he had been submerged in darkness. The wizard who had sought and rescued him over and over again until he had been so sure that he was too lost to be found.

"Who were you thinking of this time?" The question came again.

Harry turned away remembering all the nights he had spent swearing to himself that he would not answer that question ever again. He bit his lower lip painfully as he forced the admission to stay hidden within the cave of his mind where it echoed over and over until it was all he could hear.

The warm body withdrew from him. Silently, Severus Snape gathered his clothes and hurriedly got dressed. His dark eyes were laced with coldness as he looked on the figure that lay on his bed.

"I suggest you leave before I return, Potter. Tell that meddlesome old fool that I will not be forced to work with you under any circumstance. If he would like to retain my services he had better decide whether losing me is a loss or gain to Hogwarts." He paused at the door, but did not turn around. "As for you, I should have known better. My only regret is that I wasn't there those days in that cell with you. Believe me, I would have made it well worth it for them."

The chill that washed over Harry in the moment that the door slammed shut seemed to bring with it all the regret and shame and disgust that he had buried within.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the image of the wizard that he had been hurting since he was seventeen.

In the hours to follow, Harry did not move.

Not to eat. Not to sleep. Not to wander aimlessly around as he searched his memories over and over and over to find that moment when he had lost his heart and traded his soul. He was broken. Used. Empty. He was older now. No longer seventeen. No longer selfish and ashamed of whom he loved and what he loved.

Yet, he had been afraid to say it.

White hot, nightmare quality scared that sent nausea washing over him, as Ron had declared.

Severus paused in the doorway when he caught sight of Harry still sitting where he had left him on the bed. His expression hardened as he slammed the door, seemingly determined to ignore the other wizard.

"I was thinking of you," Harry said softly.

"How long did it take you to wrap your tongue around the words? Hours now? Was it hard to convince yourself of such a lie? Did it stick in the back of your throat?"

Harry picked up the wooden bedside chair and flung it violently at the wizard before him. It crashed against the wall as Severus sidestepped it, breaking into a rain of splinters from the force of the spell.

"Love you," Harry whispered.

"Try again Potter. A little more conviction behind the words should convince me of your lack of sincerity."

The beautiful grey vase near the magic window was next to follow. It exploded in midair, having missed the Potions Master, not quite making it as far as the wall.

"I'm sorry about what happened at Hogwarts. I was stupid and a child and I just couldn't see past the blinds of my mates' words or their impressions. A part of me was in love with you even then. You made sense in a world that smothered me." Harry's eyes became clouded by embarrassment at the memories of the nights he would spend lying in Severus' arms trying to convince himself that he was not happy.

"Potter, you are- " The sentence was never finished.

The inkbottles from the writing table in the corner sailed through the air like little projectiles, bent on causing destruction. They froze then fell in mid-flight from a spell and flick of Severus' wand.

"Say you forgive me," Harry whispered.

"You don't need my forgiveness you shameless Gryffindor."

Having run out of hard objects, one pillow was thrown. Severus swept it aside as he approached the bed.

"Say it anyway," Harry responded softly.

"No!"

Pillow number two followed and it was transfigured into a fall of water that returned to being a pillow once it hit the ground.

"Then say you love me too and that's why you made me come back night after night when I would hurt you with my words and my shame. Say it's why you found me when no one else knew where to look. Say it's why you never gave up. Or why you were always the only person standing outside my door when I was at St. Mungo's. Or the person who said you would hex each and every one of them if I did not start improving. Say it's why you've been keeping tabs on me all these years."

"Foolish Gryffindor," Severus chided, crawling onto the bed to snatch the wand away from Harry's grasp.

"Proud Slytherin," Harry retorted, lacing his fingers through the thin, pale ones that were always so warm to the touch. "Say it."

Emerald gaze met onyx, forging a bond of steel and sending reels of thin red invisible thread towards each other as they entangled and bound the two wizards.

"Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it," Harry chanted over and over.

Severus closed the distance with a kiss that left no questions as to who was dominant and who needed whom more. The words he whispered in Harry's ear were for the younger wizard only, as he enfolded him within his arms, trailing kisses along tan coloured skin.

"I love you too," Harry murmured, hours later.

X-x-x-X-x-x-X

_**The End**_


End file.
